The Wagner City Council met for their regular monthly meeting on December 2nd at 6 p.m. at City Hall. There was quite a list of items on the agenda, but only a couple of topics that led the council to discuss. These issues included the first reading of the Ordinance #2024-006 which is the Special Bed, Booze and Ticket Sale Ordinance also known as the BBB tax, the city pool and the search for a new city attorney.

TheBBBtaxwasfirstbrought up at the September 4th meeting of the city council by Wagner City Administrator, Debbie Houseman. At that time, it just an idea that she was presenting to the board as something that she could research and return to the board with more information at a later date. With the first reading of the potential new city ordinance, it passed the city council’s vote unanimously in favor of. What this ordinance would mean would be that instead of the City of Wagner charging a 2% customer sales tax, there would now be a 3% sales tax on according to the American Legal Publishing “sale of leases or rentals of hotel, motel, campsites or other lodging accommodations within the municipality…sale of alcoholic beverages…establishments where the public is invited to eat, dine or purchase and carry out prepared food for immediate consumption, and ticket sales or admissions to places of amusement, athletic and cultural events.”

This 1% increase in taxes, is taxed directly to the consumers of the above listed items, not the Wagner businesses themselves. If this were to become an ordinance, it would generate additional revenue for the City of Wagner. At the meeting it was discussed and seemed to be a general consensus that if the council were to pass this, they would want to precisely know where the additional money was going and for what purposes. The proceeds of this tax could be divided up via percentages between one or several different areas/entity’s depending on what the city council decides upon.

The city pool was also another point of discussion, as Wagner Pool Fundraising Committee members Jamie Tjeerdsma and Ericka Kotab addressed the council as to their concerns about sending mixed signals to both the Wagner community and pool donors. When Tjeerdsma addressed the board, she spoke about how grateful the committee was for the City of Wagner in raising their promised share of the proposed pool funds, but was concerned that the city and the pool fund raising committee did not have the same ideas when it came to the future of the city pool. This came about after the council voted to move the slide at the pool, with the hopes that moving the slide would make it feasible for the city to purchase bulk heads for the pool in order to host swim meets at the November 4th meeting. On the most recent city council agenda, the council was to review a quote to fill in the end of the pool in order for the pool to meet regulation size for swim meets. It was discussed that another stakeholder’s type meeting take place where there can be an exchange of ideas about the future of the pool, including Yankton Sioux Tribal leaders, WCS superintendent, WCS school board members, members of city council, members of the Wagner Community Memorial Hospital Avera team and community members. It was brought up by Tjeerdsma that she would like to see the entities of the community stop working in silos and instead work together in order to better the Wagner community. The date, time and location will be announced at a later date.

A final topic of discussion was the hiring of a new city attorney as current attorney, Beau Barrett has resigned and a replacement has yet to be found. The only two law firms that have shown interest are located in Sioux Falls. Meierhenry Sargent LLP and Woods, Fuller, Schulz & Smith P.C. are the two firms that each have several attorneys that could serve as the Wagner City Attorney. Both of these law firms have good reputations and are considered to be very influential. With the fact that the attorneys will possibly be coming from such reputable law firms and with the distance, it will cost the city considerably more than what they are currently paying the city attorney. It was decided by the council that Houseman would set up interviews with both firms and if she felt they were viable candidates would set up a time for the council to informally meet one or both parties.